


Dreams and Wishes

by alilfallofrain



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 12:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3851752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alilfallofrain/pseuds/alilfallofrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve loses everything, but in his dreams everything is as it should be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams and Wishes

When Steve goes into the ice his last thoughts are of Bucky and Peggy. In that half a moment before he hits he thinks of all the things he never got to do with Bucky, and all the things he’ll never get to do with Peg. He thinks of the hot dogs on Coney Island and how he’ll never get to take Peggy there, never get to show her  his New York. His and Bucky’s. 

 

When Steve wakes up, once he realizes what’s happened, when he understands, he feels his heart break. Peggy was all he had left. The half-second of joy at being alive, of having a second chance at it all, was gone, leaving a sickening aftertaste. He lost Bucky. He lost Peggy - even on the off chance she was still alive it wasn’t the same. They’d never be able to grow old together. He’d already missed that part. What was the point of bringing him back?

 

Once he found out about Peggy he felt obligated to go visit. He missed her so much and sometimes visiting meant long talks about the good ol’ days and how she’d founded SHIELD and all of her amazing adventures. But those were the good days. On the bad days her memory lasted barely 10 minutes before he felt the pang of guilt as she exclaimed his name, cried that he was alive, reached out her shaky arms for a hug. It hurt too much. It was like losing her all over again, each time she would blink, eyes going blank for the briefest moment as if someone hit a reset button in her brain. He would force a smile, tell her he couldn’t leave his best girl, listen helplessly as she cried with joy, hiding the hurt he felt. Slowly he began visiting less and less. She doesn’t know the difference, he would tell himself, if anything he’s doing her a favor - she already thought he was dead, why torture her with the constant discovery that he was, in fact, alive? It was selfish, he knew, going so he could have  something from his old life. 

 

And then, on the bridge, as if out of a dream, was Bucky. Alive, slightly more metallic than the last time he’d seen him, but alive nonetheless. Which meant that he’d been alive, when he fell. He’d been alive and Steve left him there, alone, in the cold, to be discovered and experimented on and tortured. 

 

It was as though everything he managed to salvage from his past was shattered and reshaped and given back to him in some approximation that didn’t quite live up to the memory. It was bad enough having to see Tony every day. He was so similar to Howard and yet so very different. Not lesser, exactly, just...different. 

 

At night Steve would fall into a dream state where he was back in the war, with Howard and Peggy and Bucky and the commandos. Everything was how it was supposed to be. There was no plane crash, no sleeping through his life, no losing everyone and everything he loved one by one. In the morning he would wake begrudgingly, knowing his dream was just that, and count the hours until he could return to bed, to sleep, and to them, how they were supposed to be; Peggy was young and vibrant and fantastic. Bucky was his jubilant best friend, causing trouble and keeping Steve away from the worst of it. Howard was inventing everything under the sun and seducing a different starlet every night. 

 

During the day he was reckless, knowing that if something happened to him, if his new life was ended, he would at least be with the ones he loved - and this time he wouldn’t have to wake up.


End file.
